


in your eyes.

by l0nelynight



Category: In Your Eyes (2014), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eton, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, In Your Eyes - Freeform, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Modern Era, Telepathic Bond, as is gaius, gwen is a mother hen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-21 04:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6037216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l0nelynight/pseuds/l0nelynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin lives in northern Scotland, surrounded by beach and snow most of the year. Gaius is breathing down his neck, watching his every move to make sure he doesn't start using again. Arthur lives in central London, surrounded by rich, successful people, expected to follow in his father's footsteps and to smile at every damn event. Wary eyes watch his every move, making sure he stays the poster boy he's always supposed to have been. So when Arthur hears Merlin's voice in his head one day, starts seeing life through his eyes, it's safe to say it shakes every expectation he's had up. ((based on in your eyes film))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue.

His tie felt tight around his throat, a little too close for comfort, but his father had done it that way to look smart. His friends around him, Gwaine and Percy, laughed at a joke one had told, but Merlin’s mind was so far away he couldn't even comprehend the sound coming out of their mouths. Every time he looked at his friends, he could see two layers, as though the world was fading away into somewhere different. A small room, bricks surrounding him. He could feel his hands holding his rucksack straps, perhaps a little tightly, and yet the feeling of violin strings and the bending of his wrist with a bow still struck through them. He could hear the squeaky notes of someone who hadn't practiced, hear the voice of an old man telling him how wrong he was, feel the disappointment within him. All within this small brick room.

But he wasn't in a small brick room. 

Merlin was in a playground, celebrating the end of his final year at primary school before he moved into year 7 and enjoyed high school. There were flecks of snow beginning to fall from the harsh Northern Scottish skies; January had always been particularly cold and painful. The freezing winds nipped his ears. His friends had always said it was the size that made them vulnerable to such weather, to the extent that last winter he had refused to take off his beanie to cut his hair until his mum pulled it off him and refused to give it back. His socks were slightly itchy but his toes were still freezing, his boots being too old and battered to really provide much warmth. And yet, he could feel unbearable heat. The blasting of a radiator into a small, thick walled room was becoming painful, his hair was stuck to his head with sweat, his fingers trembling as he played the same damn song on the violin time and time again until Mr Duncan said it was perfect.

…Who is Mr Duncan?  
Why do I care what he thinks of my violin playing?  
I can’t even play the violin? 

Merlin hadn't even noticed he had faded away completely from reality until Gwaine nudged him, and he fell off his perch on the playground wall. He hit the ground hard, his wrist softening the fall. The pain was suddenly blinding and he could feel it vibrate up and down his entire arm. Groaning, he grabbed at it, as Gwaine and Percy looked on in horror, at a loss of what to do. Through the bleariness of the pain, he saw a face, backgrounded by the same red brick he’d been lost in moments before, yelling at him, asking if he was okay, why he had dropped the violin did he KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COST? As he lay, almost crying as he clutched at his almost certainly broken wrist, the old man’s voice kept calling at him a name that most certainly wasn't his. 

After he’d been treated, his mum would tell him it was the pain talking through hallucinations, the old man was just a coping method his brain conjured up to make him feel better about his definitely broken wrist.

But it was real. He was so sure of it. The reflection off the man's glasses was not his dark haired, pasty complexion (he blamed his dad). It was blonde, and tanned, a skin tone his body had never seen. And for a second, he felt like he was looking at himself as this blonde haired blue eyed boy who played the violin and spent time in hot, brick covered rooms. And then there was the fact that the old man just wouldn't stop calling him Arthur. 

Who the hell is Arthur?


	2. chapter one.

Well before his alarm for work should have gone off, Merlin was lying in his bed, shivering and staring at the ceiling in adamant refusal to admit that once again, his boiler was broken. Yes, it was old, yes, it probably should have been replaced twenty years before he even moved in here, but hell if he had the money to. Hell if he had the money to do anything aside from buy cigarettes these days. An English degree really doesn’t get you very far. After several minutes of internal cursing, he concluded he wouldn’t be able to sleep like this, and swung his long, ridiculously thin legs out from under the duvet, the bed groaning as he did. The cold slapped him painfully, and he was reminded just how harsh Scottish weather could be, even indoors. It didn’t really help that his shitty flat didn’t have insulation, and so a cold breeze gently blew throughout all the rooms. He had a few hours until his shift started, so he walked to the kitchen, lighting a cigarette as he did. Flicking the kettle on, he sighed and leaned on the counter, still shivering.  
The gentle feeling of a spray of hot water suddenly creeped along his back, and Merlin leapt a foot in the air in surprise. Turning on his heel, he looked for a leak, grabbing at his bare back to feel where was wet. Instead, he grabbed bone dry, ice cold skin. The feeling of hot water splashing was still there and yet he couldn’t feel any moisture in the slightest. As he poked every area of his back, looking round his kitchen suspiciously, he slowly relaxed, putting it down to whatever it was in his brain that caused him to experience things like this. Once when he was 16, he spent a whole hour thinking he was getting told off by a man in a bespoke suit in a mahogany office, before slowly coming to realise he was sat on a bus. He managed to convince himself it was a dream, but the feeling that had come with it couldn’t be shook. And it was back now, teasing him as he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.  
The sound of the kettle boiling made him jump back into reality, and as quick as it had come, the hot water feeling faded away into nothingness. Merlin’s lit cigarette lay untouched after a single drag on the side as he made his normal black coffee, and it wasn’t until he turned to go that he realised it was there. Putting it out and lighting another, he took another look around the icy cold kitchen before walking back to his room, disconcerted and slightly shook. 

Arthur jumped in the shower at his normal time of half six, readying himself for work for the day. Standing under the hot water, a burning sensation in the back of his throat and nose suddenly appeared, making him cough. It felt like the time Morgana had offered him a cigarette when he was 15, and trying to impress her he’d taken a drag. He’d coughed so much they both thought he was going to throw up. After a moment, it faded away and he was left with an odd aftertaste. As though he’d actually been smoking. Slightly confused, he put it out of his mind and brushed his teeth to get rid of it. The hot water was still falling around him, and he started to skim through his to do list of the day. Leon was accompanying him to the meeting at 12, he has the notes and…. Why on earth is it so cold? Checking the shower knob, he was surprised to see it hadn’t moved from his toasty 30 degrees, and yet; it was freezing. He couldn’t stop shivering and it was though the air around him had suddenly turned to ice. Arthur pulled himself further under the hot water, trying to settle the goosebumps appearing across his body. As he reached out for the soap, for a moment he could have sworn he saw a kitchen with a cigarette laying on the side, as though forgotten. He could see his hand turn cold and pale. Blinking, he stared again, the world disappearing as he closed his eyes. His hand was exactly the way it had always been, the soap laying on the ledge, no kitchen or cigarette in sight. The rest of the shower went quickly, suppressing his urge to just run away instead. 

Somehow, Merlin was still late. He was up three hours too early, lived a ten minute walk away, and yet he still managed to be so late he had to sprint the entire route to work. Gaius was stood at the till, dusting shelves behind him as Merlin barrelled into the store, tripping over an undone lace on his Dr Marten. He crash landed, narrowly missing a table of second hand vintage classics as the cheery jingle of the door played behind him. Gaius just stood for a moment, watching as Merlin leapt back up to almost fall straight back down again, and then just sighed, shaking his head.

“You’re lucky we’re quiet this early Merlin,” he said, his tone slightly amused, slightly exasperated. Merlin looked around bewildered, and then smiled at Gaius cheekily, obviously trying to distract from the fact he was clearly late.  
“Well you know me Gaius, lucky as ever!”  
The bookstore had been owned by Gaius for nearly forty years, and was his pride and joy. Merlin worked here because he really didn’t have any other choice.  
He also quite liked books.  
Wandering into the back room, he stared at the boxes of books he had to sort through. Groaning, he turned back to look at Gaius.  
“Don’t suppose you feel like letting me work till today?” He knew he was trying his luck, but the idea of sorting out fifty copies of the same Austen book made him want to cry. Gaius was quiet for a moment, raising an eyebrow at him before sighing and putting down the duster.  
“Only because I’m worried you may kill yourself tripping over a box,” he replied, and Merlin grinned again. Almost skipping to the till in excitement at avoiding the real work, he sat down on the stool and perused the shelves Gaius had been dusting. Second hand copies of all his favourite books stood waiting to be bought, and Merlin ran his fingers along all their spines, stopping at One Hundred Days of Solitude. Working at the till rarely brought anything interesting, so he had always used it as an excuse to curl up and read.  
Obviously however, today was against him and the cheery jingle of the door played again and a small woman and a beautiful specimen of a human walked in together after only three pages. Merlin sighed, bookmarking where he was.  
“I thought you two had plans today?” he asked, slightly put out at the interruption. The small woman raised an eyebrow and Merlin immediately backtracked. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you of course! Gwen I love you please don’t kill me. How’re you both doing?”  
Gwen and Lance had both gone to university with Merlin, and ended up moving not too far away to him after graduation. They said it was cheaper and had good job opportunities. Merlin was sure it was intentionally to mother hen him until he died of old age. Besides, countryside villages didn’t exactly offer much barre tea rooms, farming, and of course, old bookstores. With their lying skills, it was a good thing neither of them had done law. Or business. God, screw businessmen.  
Gwen smiled at him, and waved at Gaius in the back room.  
“Has Merlin got you doing all the work Gaius?” Lance called, a teasing tone in his voice. Merlin set a glare on him and Lance grinned back as Gaius walked out into the shop.  
“Merlin is having one of those days,” he replied and Gwen snorted.  
“Isn’t every day one of those days?”  
“You know, none of you are very funny. I hope you know that,” Merlin replied, his friends surrounding him with grins plastered on their stupid faces. Looking at them, and the comment he knew was sitting on Gwen’s tongue, he thought, not for the first time, he possibly needed new friends. 

As it turned out, Leon had completely forgotten the notes, and the meeting was a disaster. The tense look on his father’s face when Arthur left the room with the two other men gave a hint enough that he was definitely in trouble. He didn’t even bother going to his office, instead walking alongside his father to the CEO office. Nodding at Leon as he broke off to go to lunch, Arthur shoved his hands inside his trouser pockets and braced for the worst as they walked into the mahogany room.  
He didn’t even have time to sit down.  
“And what was that?” Uther’s voice was calm and controlled, but incredibly cold. It was a tone Arthur had become accustomed to over the years, but it never became any easier to deal with. He opened his mouth to reply, when a knock on the door interrupted his train of thought. The knock was swiftly followed by Morgana, his sister, swooping in, cigarette in hand, already halfway through her sentence.  
“Uther really, it wasn’t Arthur’s fault. In fact, it wasn’t anyone’s fault just a simple misunderstanding, but that’s not the issue here, look. I need to borrow Arthur.” She paused to take a drag and Arthur warily looked between the smoke alarm she was stood directly under, his father’s simmering rage that was nicely boiling under the surface, and Morgana’s apathetic glaze as she looked Uther in the eyes. The two had never really got on, and it was always Arthur stuck in the middle. For once however, he was thankful of this rivalry and bolted out of the leather chair, desperate for the lifeline she offered.  
“I’ll be back as soon as possible, you know Morgana, can’t keep her waiting,” he rushed, already edging to the door. Uther looked like he’d bitten on a lemon as Morgana joined Arthur’s side, waving antagonistically at her father. The door swung shut behind them and he exhaled heavily.  
“Thank God for you Morgana,” he sighed in relief. She smirked and continued walking towards the exit.  
“Don’t you forget it dear brother,” Her heels echoed through the laminated hall, and he noticed she wasn’t in her work clothes.  
“Where are we going?” Sighing, she stopped and waited for him to catch up with her, taking another drag. Smoking indoors was illegal, and had been for several years, but the look in her eye dared any and all employees to tell her so.  
“Book shopping, it’s my birthday in a week and quite frankly I don’t trust you at all with my present.”  
He genuinely tried to be offended, but she was right. She liked these stupid books that no one had ever heard of and were usually not in English and he’d gotten it wrong so many times he didn’t blame her for not trusting him. As he walked out of the building alongside Morgana, he turned to her, a thought suddenly hitting him from out of the blue.  
“Hey, have you ever read One Hundred Years of Solitude?”  
Morgana turned to him, her usual perplexed look whenever he said something nonsensical plastered over her face.  
“And how do you know about Marquez?” she asked. Arthur looked blankly at her, the name not ringing any bells.  
“Is that English?”  
Rolling her eyes, Morgana dropped the butt of her cigarette and ground it into the ground before lighting another.  
“Next time Leon starts listing authors to buy me, I think the general assumption is you don’t just blurt it out as soon as you see me, okay?”  
Honestly, he had no idea what she was talking about, but he also had no idea where the name had come from, so he just smiled and nodded. Leon, yeah. It had to have been him, he must’ve just picked it up and stored it in his subconscious.  
Yeah.  
Leon.  
Shaking his head, he followed Morgana who had started walking much quicker, trying to shake the weird feeling he got sometimes and mentally noting maybe he should google what the hell he’s talking about.


End file.
